Thursday, October 06, 2016

With decades of corporate office experience, I'm finding that organizing myself for selling at local craft shows is a skill I'm enjoying using.

Organizing Tools

When I scheduled my first two craft shows, I realized quickly I needed to have a few things in place to make sure things went smoothly. Being a big fan of Microsoft OneNote, I immediately created a new virtual notebook to hold to-do lists, schedules of possible craft shows, contact information, checklist of items to bring and inventory lists.

Then, the inventory list, turned into a mini-database where I can store all sorts of information, such as a description, the price, the cost of materials, merchandise, code, etc.

Then I realized, my credit card service (Square) would allow me to upload inventory, so I could do direct sales of all my items instead of typing in an amount before swiping the credit card. And I can use the sales inventory even for cash transactions, so all my sales are recorded.

And if that wasn't enough, I realized I could add photos of each item in inventory so I could easily find the item when recording a sale.

And wait...that's not all...I then realized I could easily add any inventory items and photos to a web site to do direct internet sales. Each time an item is sold, it disappears from inventory so I don't double sell an item Now everyone can check out what items I'll be selling at the various craft shows (and purchase them, although I can't imagine many of my customers will be knitters who read this blog):

www.doublepointed.com

If you haven't figured this out by now, I'm quite impressed with Square as a credit card processing company.

Current Knitting

I managed to added a few more rows to the latest Bias Scarf, and I also started a new hat project.

The hat is a Stephen West design called Westward which is both a headband design and a hat if you don't stop at just the headband. You'll note I have finished the headband piece, but I won't stop there.

With decades of corporate office experience, I'm finding that organizing myself for selling at local craft shows is a skill I'm enjoying using.

Organizing Tools

When I scheduled my first two craft shows, I realized quickly I needed to have a few things in place to make sure things went smoothly. Being a big fan of Microsoft OneNote, I immediately created a new virtual notebook to hold to-do lists, schedules of possible craft shows, contact information, checklist of items to bring and inventory lists.

Then, the inventory list, turned into a mini-database where I can store all sorts of information, such as a description, the price, the cost of materials, merchandise, code, etc.

Then I realized, my credit card service (Square) would allow me to upload inventory, so I could do direct sales of all my items instead of typing in an amount before swiping the credit card. And I can use the sales inventory even for cash transactions, so all my sales are recorded.

And if that wasn't enough, I realized I could add photos of each item in inventory so I could easily find the item when recording a sale.

And wait...that's not all...I then realized I could easily add any inventory items and photos to a web site to do direct internet sales. Each time an item is sold, it disappears from inventory so I don't double sell an item Now everyone can check out what items I'll be selling at the various craft shows (and purchase them, although I can't imagine many of my customers will be knitters who read this blog):

www.doublepointed.com

If you haven't figured this out by now, I'm quite impressed with Square as a credit card processing company.

Current Knitting

I managed to added a few more rows to the latest Bias Scarf, and I also started a new hat project.

The hat is a Stephen West design called Westward which is both a headband design and a hat if you don't stop at just the headband. You'll note I have finished the headband piece, but I won't stop there.